Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue

When I was in 5th grade in the Henrico county school system, we had two high school students come and visit our classroom once a week to "teach" us something. At least that was their goal. We never thought of it as a lesson, though. To us, it was an hour a week where we got to hang out with High School kids, and that was cool. The organization the students belonged to was called S.O.D. A. ( Student Organization for Developing Attitudes) I knew from that moment on when I got to High School, I wanted to participate in that organization, and I did. My junior and senior year of high school I was on a SODA team that went to elementary schools, specifically 5th grade classes to "teach" When you become part of SODA, you are given   reference material that has several examples of lessons to use with your class. Most are activities that all have underlying themes to teach the right attitudes toward ourselves and others. One of the ones I remember was "Warm Fuzzies/Cold Pricklies" My partner and I made little fuzzy characters with google eyes and had a bag of the prickly "gumballs" that fall from trees. Each student was given 1 of each, and asked to describe what holding each one felt like. Then we would talk about our words and how they can be just like warm fuzzies or cold pricklies, and how we should speak to each other with kindness. You get the idea. We had a lesson like that one each week through the whole school year. By far, the most powerful lesson we ever did, was the Brown Eyes/Blue Eyes lesson. My partner and I came into the classroom as we had done each week, and without any explanation, we asked all the children with Brown eyes to raise their hands. My partner then asked them to line up at the door, and he took them outside. The blue eyed group stayed in with me. In a fairly stern voice, I told them all to take out a piece of paper. Questions were asked where the other group was going. I told them they were going outside to play. When questioned further about why they couldn't go, I told them it was because they had blue eyes. They had to stay in and do work. Harsh warnings of "NO TALKING!" were given. The Blue eyes were treated less than nice. Both my partner and I were active in our school's theatre department, so we played it to the hilt. After 20 minutes or so, we reversed the groups and they were given the same treatment. The children came back in and then we all discussed how they felt when they were the group being kept inside. No one said they liked the way they were treated. I'm sure you have figured out that this was a lesson on discrimination. That was back in 1981, a time that was past the civil rights movement and huge strides had been made, but it was still a powerful lesson about being treated differently for being different. There is a video floating around Facebook right now of a classroom teacher, Jane Elliott, who created and did this exact experiment with her third graders ( all white) back in the 1960's in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

I watched it today. There are parts that actually made me cry as you see the looks on the faces of the students who are being discriminated against. I did not know that the SODA lesson I was teaching 20 years later actually began when I was a child myself. I'm sure these children's lives were changed after what Miss Elliott taught them or better yet let them see, firsthand, what it was like to be treated as a lesser person, to be called stupid or slow just because you were different. Some groundbreaking events are happening this week that deal with exactly this issue. We should all be ashamed of ourselves that the highest court in the land needed to tell us the simple truth that Miss Elliott tried to teach her third graders in 1964 and I tried to teach my SODA students in 1981, that we should all be treated the same, equally, no matter what our differences are. What color are your eyes?

Raise Your Hand

Something happened this week that may seem inconsequential to some. One Facebook status made their feelings very clear by stating they "didn't give a shit" And that's what Facebook is about sharing with the world how we feel. But this particular event, to me, was one of the best and most courageous things in a long time. I am speaking of Jason Collins, the NBA player who came out this week. Coming out is a brave step for anyone, but to come out in a profession that is pegged as a very heterosexual environment is paramount! How hard it must have been for him to deny himself with his teammates for all those years, to, as he put it, "act straight" I am straight, and I think it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible to live my life pretending to be gay, not because being gay is a bad thing, but because it goes against the nature of who I am. So what! He's gay! Big deal! It is a big deal to him, to his family, friends, teammates, and every kid who's on a basketball team right now who's afraid to tell anyone who he really is. But the real test is not in Jason's brave announcement, it will be in how we react to it. We are the ones who are tested right now! We are the ones who must support him and everyone like him. Former president Bill Clinton was quoted as saying, "It is ... the straightforward statement of a good man who wants no more than what so many of us seek: to be able to be who we are; to do our work; to build families and to contribute to our communities. For so many members of the LGBT community, these simple goals remain elusive. I hope that everyone, particularly Jason’s colleagues in the NBA, the media and his many fans extend to him their support and the respect he has earned." It seems so simple, doesn't it? Why can't people just be who they are? Why do we not allow that? Maybe it isn't a concern for most. How much of a concern would it be if you were being forced to deny yourself and live a life that was a lie? Jason said this. "I didn’t set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I’m happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn’t the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, 'I’m different.' If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I’m raising my hand." So to me, Jason Collins, it is a big deal, and to millions of others! Thank you for raising your hand!

"In time we hate that which we often fear" ~ William Shakespeare

I remember as a child talking in my earliest classes about how boring life would be if we were all the same, that being different is what made the world an interesting place to be. For some reason that always brought an image to mind of this huge cookie cutter that cut as all from the same dough in the exact same shape. I can remember thinking, "How Boring!" I took away from that lesson that it's okay to be different, even preferred. My childhood classes would have taken place in the early 1970's, and at that time, I didn't even know what "being gay" meant except being "happy and gay" I'm not sure all of the people who were teaching me those lessons knew what "being gay" meant. It was certainly never discussed in my household. However, I chose to be involved in the theatre at the age of 10, and many people that I came in contact with were "gay" although I had no concept of that. They didn't hurt me. They didn't corrupt my mind with their "evil" ways. We were just in a show together and talked and laughed and played. Fast forward to my high school days. By this time, I knew what "gay" meant. It still didn't bother me. That was back in 1982. No one was really "out" at that time. I remember one of my dear friends who was a senior decided to be "out" It was a bold and courageous move on his part. I spent a great deal of time worrying about him, not because of what he was, but because of the way others might react. He made it out of high school unscathed, physically at least, but things could have been so much worse. Why? Because, unfortunately, there also exists something called "hate." I remember at the time that he was physically threatened by some players on the football team. They were going to beat him up because he was "different" Wait, what happened to that cookie cutter philosophy? Wasn't it good to be different? Not in those football players minds, but why so much animosity to the point of threatened violence? One word, FEAR! It amazes me that they were afraid of my gentle, sweet friend, but that fear of his difference is what drove their hate of him.
13 years ago on this very day, that same type of fear led two men to brutally torture a 22 year old gay man and leave him to die in the cold and biting wind of a remote area in Laramie, Wyoming. Matthew Shepard suffered a fate that night that I wouldn't wish on a wild animal, let alone a fellow human being. There was no motivation for their actions but hate. They weren't crazy or maniacal. They knew exactly what they were doing, and that, my friends, is the true horror of it all. Why can't we go back to that preschool and early childhood mentality? We can't all be, think, live the same. That makes life boring. Just because someone is different than you doesn't mean there difference will rub off on you. Difference is not a disease, but HATE is. Hate, when nurtured, spreads like wildfire. I don't know about you, but I'm ready for an end to this epidemic! Somebody posted the quote from Eminem on Facebook today in the picture above. It really is that simple.